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Reserving My Right To Change My Mind

Holy Smokes!!! It has been far too long since last I posted. Sorry guys, like the John Lennon song says “life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans.” Life has been happening all around me, mostly very good things, but it has kept me busy. As things get into a nice groove I shall get back to my minimum one post a day. Frankly I would not have posted tonight, but I’ve read too much to stay silent.

A few months ago I posted that I was going to vote for our incumbent President and the reasons why. The reasons are still there, the presumptive GOP nominee is only marginally better than the madmen he bested, I really do not want him to be the President. That said, I no longer want our current Chief Executive in office. He is nowhere near our worst President, even in, especially in, my life time, but he is at best another place holder that allows the economic elites to manipulate events to the detriment of the rest of us.

He has beat the drum of deregulation, that insane policy that brought us to our current economic woes, as loudly as any Republican. His window dressing economic progressiveness is limited to the “Buffett Rule” a rule that would merely maintain a status quo of the more or less flat tax we already have. He has assigned the very people who have broken our trust to guard that trust. All of that pales in comparison to his worst crime.

Yes, it is a crime what has been done to Bradley Manning. This young man has suffered being held in solitary confinement for ten months, without trial. He has had President Obama state that he has broken the law, declaring his guilt before he has been given a chance to defend himself in court. The administration has allowed for a provision in the NDAA codifying indefinite detention. They bombed a foreign nation without provocation. This President has behaved, on the national security front, in exactly the same ways his predecessor had, with nary a sound from those that condemned GW Bush for his policies.

Has this President done good things? Certainly, and I am grateful for them. As a queer I am grateful for the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. I am grateful for his refusing to defend DOMA. That said, I cannot in good conscience support a man who is so willingly a tool of the military industrial complex and who is willing to shred those rights that we have, in the past, rightfully held up as the reason that despite our flaws we are a shining example to the rest of the world. It is for this reason I will be voting for Jill Stein in November.

Maybe the President is the lesser of two evils, but I refuse to vote like that anymore. I will vote my conscience and sleep well. I won’t condemn anyone so afraid of a Romney Presidency that they decide to vote for President Obama, but as you do so, as you contemplate your voting habits and political life over the next several months, ask yourself if this man shares your values, and please, even if you give him your electoral support, at least ask yourself if he deserves your moral support.